


Icarus

by Lucifer_BringerofLight



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28011543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucifer_BringerofLight/pseuds/Lucifer_BringerofLight
Summary: All her life Rachel had dreamed of flying to the stars, but when her dream finally comes true, things don't go as planed.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

„You should maybe slow down on the books a little.”

Looking down on the piles of books in front of her, Rachel sighed. Mel was right, probably. Then again, she didn’t know when she would get to come home again.

“But I need them. All of them! They’re my babies.”

“Just pick some! Like, your favourite ten novels, and some science-y ones.”

“How would you feel if I told you to pick your favourite baby!”

Mel raised her eyebrow at her friend. It wasn’t new that, when it came to books, Rachel was a little melodramatic. And, of course, Mel knew that her friend would never manage to choose only ten books to bring along.

“Well? How would you feel if I asked you to leave either Ricky or Annie behind?”

“Depends, would Annie stay with you? Because then I’ll leave Rick here.”

Both of them started giggling, with then grew to a hearty laughter.

“You’re a terrible person, Melanie McIver.”

“True. So, _Good Omens_ or _The Martian_? Please tell me, you don’t want to take _The Martian_ along on your trip to space, because that really doesn’t sound like a good omen to me.”

“Ha-ha, very funny. Both of them. But I’ll leave all of the Jane Austin behind, except for _Pride and Prejudice._ ”

In a similar manner they made their way through Rachel’s bookshelf. At least through the one she had the ‘important books’ in. In the library where, as the name said, several more of them, but those were the books she read more than once or twice. In the end, Rachel closed the box with a deep sigh and wrote on the top of it with Edding ‘FUN BOOKS!!’. Then she put the box to the others in the hall. All labelled likewise. One contained nonfictional books, those Mel had earlier described as science-y, the rest were cloths and other necessities.

“What’s with your lab stuff?”

“I spent the last weeks taking my lab apart and rebuilding it. It’s all settled.”

“Explains why you haven’t finished packing by the last day.”

“You know me. I finished my dissertation like five minutes before the end of the deadline.”

With another sigh Mel grabbed one of the boxes and carried it outside the house. The moment she stepped out of the door, a huge, dark shadow hovered over her.

“You know, I won’t miss this thing a bit. I’m glad when it’s gone.”

Rachel, now next to her, with another box in her hands, laughed, “Why, it’s rather small.”

“Small? This thing is bigger than your house. And in case you didn’t notice you live in a manor.”

“Of course, it is! It’s a spaceship. It has to be big. And it’s a country residence, not a manor. ”

“That’s no reason to turn your garage into a hangar!”

“What else should I have done? Build it on my front lawn and let the world know about it before I’m done?”

“Well, yes?”

“You seem to forget that we life in Scotland! The rainiest place on earth. Even in the rainforest it rains less than here! Can you even begin to imagine what that would have done to my beautiful ship?”

“Nothing good, probably.”

By now, the women had reached the loading platform and set down their boxes.

“But why on earth would you want to take this thing anywhere? Let alone this very hostile and dangerous place called space?”

“Because it’s space. It’s the final frontier. I can go, where no one has gone before. I will be the first person to get out of our solar system.”

“Fine, just be the first person to get out of it and returns, will you?”

“Sure, I will. I will find a nice planet with nice people, get some land there and then come and get you and Ricky and Annie, and if I have to, I’ll even get Max.”

In the evening, when everything she could think of, was taken care of, Rachel sat in her kitchen for one last time. This was it. This was the big moment. Tomorrow she would show her spaceship to the world and then leave with it. Next to her sat Copernicus, her border collie. He would come along with her, of course. Sure, a spaceship was probably not the best place for a dog, but Nic had been her companion for too long to leave him behind. It was unbelievable that it was finally time. For years and years and years she had worked on this project. Invested so much time. This whole thing had started in summer before secondary school. She had been eleven and decided that she wanted to travel to the stars. And so, she had started experimenting with ways to power her very own spaceship. And now, almost twenty years later she had a spaceship with revolutionary technology. She had spent all these years working on it, while everyone around her had gotten themselves a life, she had built a spacecraft. Mel, her best friend, the person she’d grown up with, had found herself a husband and made two humans with him. Sure, Rachel was the godmother of Ricky and she spent lots of time with him, but that was it. And right now, so close to the fulfilment of her lifelong dream she wondered if this was really what she wanted.

“No!” she decided, which made Copernicus look at her confused.

“Tomorrow, my dreams will come true, I will do what no man could do before me. I will leave this godforsaken planet on a freaking Starship.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel didn’t sleep much that night. She was too nervous about what was to come to just lay in her bed. In the end, around four in the morning, she got up, showered, and began to check everything for the last time before the start. Six more hours till her guests would show up, hopefully, and another hour after that until she would fly. Death or Glory it would be. She would either die or succeed. Nothing in between. Not after eighteen years of blood and sweat.

Sometime later, she was just checking her food supply, when Mel joined her.

“Big day today.”

“About damn time.”

Instead of answering, Mel just grunted, which caused Rachel to look up and see that her friend was frowning at her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be just fine.”

“You better be.”

“And if not, the house is yours. So, the this something to look forward to. You know what, move in. I don’t want it anyway. Throw away everything inside, except my books. I’ll come back for them.”

“I don’t want your house.”

“Then sell it. Whatever.”, she shrugged it off and rose, “Right now I have to make sure the catering caters as they should.”

This experiment had been an issue between them for some time, but Rachel was too stubborn to try and see her friends point.

Then it was time to face the crowd. Some big press had come and, as she stepped on the podium, she saw that the Queen had received her invitation and has sent one of her grandsons. How very nice.

“Welcome! I’m glad to see that at least some followed my vague invitation. You will not be disappointed. Because today, we will write history! Today, we will break the final frontier. We will seek out new life and new civilisations. We will boldly go, where no one has gone before. This will be the beginning of the voyages of the Starship Icarus!”

With the end of her short introduction the gates of the hangar opened, revealing the enormous ship inside. A flurry of camera flashes shortly blinded Rachel, but she could hear the gasping and exited whispers.

“Now, I know that you expect me to hold a stunning and charming speech, but I’m an engineer, I’m a pilot, hell, I’m a soldier, but definitely not a speaker. So, we’ll directly get to the part where I answer your questions and then we eat and drink. Well, you’ll drink, I’ll have to fly later. So, questions?”

A reporter of the Times raised his hand first, so he was the first to ask, “What exactly are you planning to do with this Starship.”

“Explore our galaxy. Space is the final secret. Since I was a child I wanted to go there and study it. There are worlds out there, species and society, unknown to mankind. I want to meet as many of them as I can.”

“Can you even fly this thing?”

“Sure, I can. I was a test pilot for over eight years, been one of the best graduates of my cohort. Plus, I built it.”

“What kind of engine does it have?”

“A normal ion acceleration engine and a subspace field generator. Now, the SEP is not new. ESA as well as NASA have been experimenting with it, it’s made for travel below lightspeed. The subspace field generator however is entirely my design. It taps into subspace and uses a plasma reaction to create a gravimetric acceleration field.”

So far, the plan. Couldn’t exactly test it on earth, now could she? But science always involved risk and so did progress.

“Did you build this ship all by yourself?”

“Build? No, that would be crazy. I had some former NASA, ESA and Space-X engineers building it with me. But I designed it myself. Everything I needed that didn’t exist yet, I invented it.”

“You’ll be far more famous than Neil Armstrong.”

“I don’t think anyone is going to top the first man to walk on the moon. Though I am very sorry that Neil can’t be here today. The happier I am that Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins both made it. I am beyond honoured. This was never was never meant to be a competition with all the great and inspiring men and women before me. All I ever wanted to do is see the universe, explore it, and maybe join their legacy. Now, who wants to see the inside of my ship?”

Well, of course everyone wanted to. After all, it was a freaking spaceship! So, Rachel showed them around the bridge, engine room and some other interesting parts. Then it was time for food and conversation. She went around and talked with some more or less important people until Buzz and Michael found her.

“Pretty impressive. If I were younger, I’d join you.”

“It’s okay Buzz, we already had our moment of history. It’s her turn now. We wish you the very best of luck, Rachel.”

“Yes, yes we do. One day, you will be history, just like Neil is. But today, today you are the future.”

“Thank you. Both of you. If you excuse me for a moment. I’m gonna go, have a little chat with Prince I-forgot-his-name.”

“William.”

“Oh, yes, that was it.”

Laughing she went over to the group around the prince, which included the prime minister.

“Prime minister, your royal highness. Pleasure to see you both here.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet someone as bright and innovative as you are. My grandmother asked me to excuse her, she is indisposed but would have liked to come.”

“I understand, she is a busy woman.”

“You know, I’m a pilot myself and I have to admit, I’d love to fly your ship”

Rachel laughed. She understood completely. She had always wanted to fly the newest and craziest planes there were, and she’d always wanted to go faster and higher. That others wanted that too was not much of a surprise.

“We’ll talk about it after I come back.”

Mel stepped next to her, nodded at the two men, and turned to her friend.

“Annie is looking for you. She wants to give you something before you leave.”

“Sure, I’ll be there in a second. Don’t think I’d leave without saying goodbye to my favourite goddaughter.”

Soon later Rachel stood in front of the loading ramp, together with Mel, Ricky, Annie, and Max. Copernicus sat on the ramp, waiting for her.

“Are you leaving now?”

“Yes, my dear, but don’t worry. I’ll come back.”

“You promise?”

“I promise that I will do everything in my power. After all, I want you all to come with me on my next adventure. And for that, I need to come back and get you, don’t I?”

Annie nodded, but still began to cry, rushing forward and hugging Rachel.

“Here, we made you this. It’s a necklace. You can open it, there are pictures of all of us inside. So, you don’t forget us.”

“Honey, I could never forget you. Not ever. But thank you dear. I’ll wear it every day.”

Taking a deep breath Rachel softly pushed Annie away, “It’s time, honey. I have to go. I love you. All of you. And I will miss you, even you Max!”

Max smiled, but didn’t look too amused, same as Mel he looked worried. As a goodbye Rachel hugged them all and then joined Copernicus on the ramp.

“Now, my friends. This is no goodbye! Earth will see me again. But before that can happen, I will see the universe and solve some mysteries. Until then, wish me luck!”

She winked at Rick and Anne and turned around, walking onto the bridge, followed by Copernicus. Today was the first day of the rest of her life. And it would be one big adventure.


	3. Chapter 3

“You ready, Cop?”

He didn’t answer, but Rachel saw that as agreement.

“Then off we go.”

She activated the impulse drive, which was basically a clean rocket engine. Slowly, but steadily, the Icarus rose from the ground and into the air. Once she gained enough altitude, Rachel powered up the impulse drive a little more and soon reached the outer edge of the exosphere. For the first time, Rachel saw the universe.

“Oh look, Cop, look at that. That… that view… isn’t it just…”

Breath-taking. That’s what it was, absolutely and completely breath-taking. Even Rachel, who always had something to say, was at loss for words. Nothing could possibly describe what she thought, nor what she felt. The warm, burning feeling inside her chest was better than love, better than all the love and happiness and excitement she had ever felt combined.

She had finally made it. Into the space and off earth! The first part of her dream came true. Now it was time to test the subspace field engine. So, she powered it up. And really, in front of her ship a silvery mist appeared that thickened into a rift. With a last glance back to earth she flew into the rift. The ship began to shake and vibrate more and more violently, but the energy fields kept it intact. The sensory readings from the engine room worried Rachel more than the structural integrity. The engine was draining her power source and was running hot. The cooling system seemed to be failing.

“Cop, stay here and call me if these readings change!”

Rachel activated the com system and ran down the corridor to the engine room. For situations like this she had built an autopilot. When she reached the engine room the air was hot from the engine. The metal too hot to touch. Before she could think of anything to do it made a bang and caught fire, which activated the extinguishing system. Rachel didn’t rise again after the explosion had knocked her to the ground. She had realized that the shaking stopped, the ship had jerked to halt. She was dead in space.

“Crap.”

Her experiment had failed on its first day. Now, that was disappointing. Instead of getting back to the bridge she just sat there watching the fire going out, trying to figure out what went wrong. She had no chance to get back to earth with this much damage to her engine. Right now, she couldn’t even tell if the acceleration engine was still working. But what did it matter? She had no idea where she was and how long it would take to get back if she could ever return. With a deep sigh Rachel rose again and turned off the extinguishing system, by now she as well as the engine room were soaking wet. That was no problem, however. It was warm enough that most of the water evaporated quickly and from there the environmental systems could pick it up and store it back in the water tanks. Rachel, therefore, didn’t mind leaving the engine room alone for a bit, after she ensured that all engines were turned off. She would begin repairing it tomorrow, Rachel decided. For now, she would get changed and the write her lock. Everything else were tomorrow’s business.

The next morning brought some hope. Rachel felt better today and was eager to go to work. Unfortunately, this hope soon died as Rachel realised that it would take her months to repair the damage on the engine if she could do it at all.

“Looks like you and me are gonna stay here for a while.”

Copernicus looked up when she spoke to him, but didn’t react any further. He’d been lying next to the door the whole morning, watching Rachel from there. He was used to it by now. Throughout the last years he had watched her build the ship. Build this engine, that now had led them here. Luckily, Rachel thought, she had prepared for a case like this. With a sigh she rose, looking down on Cop,

“Which means, it’s time for a little gardening.”

In preparation for a situation where she could not stay on schedule, say being stranded in space, Rachel had created a lab in which she intended to grow her food. This lab was equipped with modified storage racks, each with three stories containing tanks full of dirt. The tanks had a build-in irrigation system and on the bottom of the upper two and above the highest were special lamps to help the plants grow. Rachel also had brought seeds and fertilizer and, with the help of a botanist, had created the most efficient plan on how and where to plant which vegetable. After all, everything she had an emergency plan for she wouldn’t have to come up with herself.

The rest of the day she spent double checking the lab systems and gardening. The coming days Rachel checked on every other system and repairing any damaged done to them if she could. Her main worry stayed the engine, however. At least the sub light engine was working, so she could avoid being hit by asteroids or space garbage. Not that she expected to find any of those. After she had finished system control and repair, she had begun to map the stars around her, comparing them to maps she had gotten from NASA. No match, whatsoever. She was no longer in parts of space known to humans. She had, quite possibly, left the milky way behind. Meaning, she was the first human to ever be here. not that she could share it with anyone, except for Copernicus.


	4. Chapter 4

While Rachel was tending her garden, collecting new data on this part of space, and trying to repair her spaceship days turned into months and months turned into years. Soon, Rachel had lost track of time. She had no idea how much time had passed exactly since she had stranded, and she didn’t really care. At the moment, she sat in her living room and read, when an unexpected sound disturbed the eerie silence she had gotten so used to. At first Rachel thought she was hallucinating. After all that time she had finally lost it. But no, there it was again, a voice. The voice of a woman. The Icarus was being hailed.

“This is Captain Janeway of the Federation star ship Voyager.”

Rachel jumped to her feet and hurried to the adjoining bridge, starring at her computer in disbelief. There was no way in hell anyone was out here. No, she had definitely lost it. Where would this other woman possibly come from?

“This is Captain Janeway. Do you need help?”

Assuming they were real, Rachel began to wonder how they even communicated with her. It took her a few seconds to remember the subroutine she had activated when she first had stranded, an emergency call, send out every few hours. On that frequency that woman seemed to have hailed her. Rachel turned to Copernicus to see if he had somehow reacted to this voice. Much to her surprise, he had. The dog was staring at the speaker from which the voice had come. Still not able to process or even believe what was happening, Rachel opened a communication channel on the same frequency. Promptly, an image appeared on the screen ahead of her, showing several people.

“Are… Is this… Are you real?”

The woman standing in the middle of the bridge, who Rachel assumed was Captain Janeway, raised an eyebrow but nodded, “Yes. I’m rather sure we are.”

Rachel swallowed thickly, then swallowed again. Questions came to her mind, urging her to ask them, but she had still not decided whether she was willing to believe what she saw.

“Who did you say you people where?”

“My name is Kathryn Janeway, I’m the Captain of this ship, this is my chief officer Chakotay. We are members of the Starfleet.”

Whatever that was. Rachel had never heard of a Starfleet. But she had more pressing concerns than the affiliation of these people. Like how they got here.

“Very interesting. What are you doing out here?”

“We were taken here by a creature that called himself the caretaker and are now trying to get back home.”

“When did you leave earth?”

Maybe they could tell her how much time had passed exactly.

The woman looked back at the man she had introduced as Chakotay, who sat behind her then turned back to Rachel, “Stardate 48315.6”

Another thing she had never heard of.

“What year would that be?”

“Year? 2371.”

“Okay, I definitely lost it, or I hit my head.”

The Captain didn’t understand what the other woman meant but didn’t ask right now.

“We have a good doctor on board. If you want, we can take your ship abord and have our doctor take a look at you.”

Rachel turned her head to Cop, who set quietly on her chair. He didn’t seem to have anything against that Janeway, which was enough for her.

“Sure, just, I don’t have a shuttle, so…”

“We have a teleporter, we can beam you over if you lower your shields.”

With only a little hesitation Rachel complied and suddenly felt a prickling sensation and then, everything went black.

Next thing she knew, Rachel was lying on a bed, starring at a celling that wasn’t hers. Actually, it was something she had never seen before.

“How is she doing?”

“Still asleep, Captain. But could you possibly take that animal away from here?”

“That’s a dog and he refused to leave her.”

“Yes, it’s a dog and it’s in my infirmary!”

Rachel turned her head and found Copernicus lying next to her on the floor.

“Cop, outside.”

He lifted his head, looked at her with sad eyes, then rose and left. Which made the doctor and the Captain aware of her.

“Oh, you’re awake, good. How are you feeling?”

“Still think I’m hallucinating, but good, actually.”

Her head didn’t hurt anymore, which it definitely had before. Which was certainly a good sign. But that should have stopped the hallucination, shouldn’t it?”

“You’re not. This here is real. But can you tell us what happened to you?”

She sighed and sat up.

“I have no idea. One moment I was on my ship, then... I wake up here.”

“Well, we were beaming you over. But as soon as you had rematerialized you just fainted.”

Huh, interesting. So, somehow this ship possessed technologies far more advanced than hers. Then again, they claimed it was 2371 or sometime after.

“So, just so I understand. You actually have a working teleporter?”

“Don’t you?”

“No. I’ve been trying to build one, but… too much quantum mechanics. And, really, I think I did my fair share of inventing with all the technologies I have onboard the Icarus. But compared to teleportation…”

Rachel didn’t finish the sentence because the change in the Captain’s facial expression had irritated her. From curious it had went to unbelieving and exited. However, it wasn’t her that spoke up next, it was another man, that had worked on a console up till now.

“Wait, you said Icarus, do you mean _the_ Icarus?”

“Last time I checked, there was only one spaceship called Icarus. Then again, last time I checked there was only one spaceship.”

So much for writing history.

“But that means you are Rachel Barkley!?”

“Whatever, yeah. That’s me. Why?”

“You are a pioneer of space travel. You’re a legend. Build the first spaceship and went to go where no one has gone before! You’re amazing. But you never made it back to earth.”

“Obviously not. If that’s really the future, I guess I’m stuck here now.”

For the first time since meeting those people Rachel actually began to believe that this wasn’t her time anymore, that she really was in the future.

“You are named in one breath as Amelia Earhart. Both your disappearances were mysterious. You are… What happened to you anyways?”

“I’m not sure. My engine overheated and blew up. No idea why. That didn’t happen with my drones. My guess, the Icarus was simply too big. That would mean the generator would have had trouble creating a stable field and therefore had to use up more energy to keep it upright. Which lead to the cooling system needing more energy too but not getting enough and thus not being able to cool the engine. And boom.”

Although she had had lots of time to figure out what had went wrong there had been too much damage to the engine to actually tell what had come from the actual explosion and what from the resulting fire.”

“I can’t believe it. Incredible. We solved both of them!”

“Both?”

The man nodded excitedly, “Yeah, a few years ago we found out what happened to Earhart.”

“Let me guess, kidnapped by aliens.”

All three nodded smiling.

“Guess I won a bet. But Mel is dead by now, isn’t she?”

Huh. And so was Annie… and Ricky and everyone else she knew. Her stomach clutched into a tight knot. That was a lot to take in, let alone deal with it. How could she possibly deal with losing everyone she ever knew? It became harder and harder for Rachel to breath, gasping for air she tried to focus on something positive, anything positive at all. The doctor tried to talk to her, but she didn’t hear it, she heard nothing but the rapid beating of her heart and her blood rushing through her veins. Nausea rolled over her making it even harder to breath. Unable to hold it back, she leaned forward and through up, directly on the doctor’s feet. Which he commented with a deep sigh and the request for a sedative, that the second man handed him quickly, watching the young woman worriedly. Soon, Rachel stopped throwing up on the Doc and drifted back into unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

When she woke up again later, she felt a little calmer. After all, she had spent the last years knowing that she most likely wouldn’t make it back home. Hearing that she couldn’t possibly ever return to her home and that everyone she knew was long dead by now had simply been too much for her.

“Ah, I see you are awake. Are you feeling better?”

The doctor appeared next to her, smiling somewhat friendly.

“Yeah, sorry for throwing up on your shoes.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not the first time and it certainly won’t be the last time.”

Right. Rachel sat up, taking a closer look at her surroundings. Just like the ceiling everything here was strange, or… futuristic.

“Doctor… I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“I don’t have a name. I’m simply ‘The Doctor’”

“How comes?”

“I’m a hologram. And a program doesn’t need a name, does it?”

He sounded slightly bitter, but Rachel was sure so would she if she wouldn’t have a name.

“If you are just a program, why are you the Doctor around here? Or are you just… I don’t know, for nightshifts and stuff?”

Again, a bitter expression crossed his face, but he explained it to her, nevertheless.

“I’m an emergency medical hologram, short EMH, meant for short time use in case all medical personal is incapacitated. When the Voyager had been taken to the Delta quadrant by the caretaker, they had been killed.”

“Taken here by the caretaker?”

The Doctor nodded, but didn’t evaluate it further.

“So, Delta quadrant, how far away from earth is it?”

Far, Rachel was guessing, considering they were still around.

“How long does a modern ship like this one need to get there?”

“About 60 or 70 years.”

Nice. But earth held nothing for her anyway and by now, Rachel had gotten used to living in space.

“So, I’ll better go find my dog.”

“It’s with Captain Janeway. She said she’d take care of it till you wake up again.”

After he did a quick check up, the Doctor told the man from earlier to take her to the Captain, which he agreed to do. So, Rachel got up and left the infirmary, following the man.

“I’m Tom Paris, by the way. I’m a pilot and sometimes play nurse, and I’m a huge fan.”

“Thanks, I guess. So, what kind of engines do you have and planes? Do you still have planes or is it all spaceships?”

Tom smiled, knowing, if he would have been in her position, he’d asked questions similar to this.

“We have shuttles and spaceships, yeah. We don’t need planes because we have transporters and, like I said, shuttles. And our spaceships work with warp core engines.”

“Warp core? What’s that?”

All Tom could do to answer that was shrugging his shoulders.

“I’m no engineer. But maybe I get to introduce you to one later, after you talked to Captain Janeway.”

Rachel nodded, that would be one interesting conversation. She had lots of questions and could imagine that the Captain had even more.


End file.
